Kathleen Parker: Question stands out in Florida trial

WASHINGTON
— It is easy to understand how everyone in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman
case feels. If I were Martin’s mother, I’d want his killer’s heart on a
platter. If I were Zimmerman’s mother, I’d be grateful my son escaped greater
injury, however he managed.

If I were
African-American, I would fear for my sons and be furious at a system that
condones vigilantism, and then acts as though naming a teen’s death a “tragedy”
ends the discussion.

The list
could go on. The point is that this is one of those rare instances in which
everyone is right within his/her own experience. Blacks are right to perceive
that Martin was followed because he was black, but it is wrong to presume that
recognizing a racial characteristic is necessarily racist. It has been
established that several burglaries in Zimmerman’s neighborhood involved
primarily young black males.

Picture
Zimmerman’s neighbor and defense witness Olivia Bertalan hiding in her locked
bedroom with her infant and a pair of rusty scissors, while two young males,
later identified as African-American, burglarized her home. They ran when
police arrived.

This is
not to justify what subsequently transpired between Zimmerman and Martin but to
cast a dispassionate eye on reality. And no, just because a few black youths
caused trouble doesn’t mean all black youths should be viewed suspiciously.
This is so obvious a truth that it shouldn’t need saying and yet, if we are
honest, we know that human nature includes the accumulation of evolved biases
based on experience and survival. In the courtroom, it’s called profiling. In
the real world, it’s called common sense.

One thing
we can all agree upon without much strain is that this incident — this
senseless, heartbreaking death — never should have happened. Zimmerman, who
began acting as a watchman in 2004 and had made more than 40 calls to
authorities over the years, never should have left his car once he had notified
police, who told him to stay put.

We also
can surmise that Zimmerman would not have followed Martin if Zimmerman weren’t
carrying a gun. If Martin were perceived as dangerous, wouldn’t an unarmed
individual keep his distance until police arrived?

Thus, we
conclude that Zimmerman’s actions led to the confrontation that ultimately
resulted in a fight that ended with the fatal shooting. It never should have
happened. And it didn’t have to.

The jury
obviously felt that Zimmerman acted in self-defense or, at least, that the
state failed to prove otherwise. It must have been a terrible conclusion to
reach because, no matter what the legal definitions that guided them, it seems
impossible that someone’s young son, guilty of nothing, should die while his
killer walks.

By the
definitions, instructions and evidence — in other words, by the book — the
jurors ruled as they could and justice feels ill-served.

So, yes,
we understand how everyone feels. But feelings are like weather — they come and
go and shift with time. Part of maturity — and fundamental to civilization — is
learning to process feelings through thought, reflection and, in this case,
debate.

Instead,
in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict, feelings have been magnified and
exploited by enablers — from certain members of the media, who seem more like
rapacious rabble-rousers than journalists, to professional activists who, in
fact, thrive on disorder.

This is a
good time to recognize that activists with television shows are not, in fact,
journalists. When Al Sharpton went to Florida to organize demands that Zimmerman
be charged, he was acting as the civil rights activist he is, not as a
broadcast journalist he plays on television.

With such
instigation, grass-roots quickly erupt into wildfires. News organizations can’t
ignore news, obviously, but which came first: The death threats? Or the TV
correspondent speculating whether Zimmerman would need to fear for his life?

As soon
as passions cool, assuming we let them, the discussion that needs to take place
surrounds a question: What was George Zimmerman doing walking around his
neighborhood armed and loaded? In what world is this normal behavior? The
answer:

Not a
world most of us want to live in. Let’s start there.

KATHLEEN PARKER writes for the Orlando
Sentinel. Her column is distributed by Washington Post Writers Group.

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